There is no defence for famous footballers or any other sportsman cheating on their wives and girlfriends – but what do you expect to happen when predatory wannabe wags hunt down their prey when they are playing away from home and promise no strings attached sex.

I am sorry but this is blatant prostitution – only worse. The girls dress provocatively and will do anything to bed their idols, invariably promising not to kiss and tell. But it always ends in tears and the guys only realise the true cost when the media magnify their mistakes and take the side of the spurned hussy with unrelenting headlines and huge lashings of spin.

The media love nothing better than the chance to destroy the reputation of someone famous. The bigger they are the greater the prize. And the more money to be made by the media and the jilted lover who always says her “heart is broken” and she never intended to bed a married man or ruin his life.

The media love to play the freedom of speech card when they criticise the legal system that allows famous people to hide behind super injunctions that protect their identity. But why do we need to read about everyone’s private life purely to feed the public’s insatiable desire for gossip and scandal.

If we really cared about the wife or girlfriend who has been allegedly let down by their partner, we definitely would not want it to be all over the media. Public humiliation is even more upsetting than whatever has or hasn’t gone on behind closed doors.

The only winners are the media – who make vast sums out of pedaling these stories – and the prostitutes and their pimps who feed the media machine with the ammunition in the first place.

There are exceptions to the rule of course. When John Terry had an affair with Wayne Bridge’s ex-girlfriend it crossed the line because it affected the team and undermined England’s preparation for the 2010 World Cup. We all had a right to know what was going on then. But do we really need to know who the married Premier League footballer is who had a fling with someone whose biggest achievement in life was appearing on Big Brother? That last sentence tells you all you need to know about this so-called fragile woman.

The media are no different than the pimps who peddle these stories and are hypocritically enabling a world of prostitution where famous sportsmen are considered fair game whatever the consequences.